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Monaco GP: Post Race press conference

NEWS STORY
27/05/2012

Mark, your second Monaco win, you won't have a closer one than that, how are you feeling?
Mark Webber: Yeah, I'm feeling incredible mate. It was a very interesting race. Reasonably straightforward at the start: getting the gap on the Supersofts, just managing it with Nico. Obviously we had a bit of a gap over the rest as well, so both of us were getting away, and it was just a matter then of trying to get back into a reasonable gap. Also, the weather was threatening around that pit stop window as well and we weren't sure if we should go a bit longer there and put a set of inters on if it rained or whatever. But Nico went for it, went early with the undercut, so obviously a few people had to react to his first chess move, and then the next phase of the race was very strange. It was very hard to get the Soft tyre warmed up, the harder tyres in terms of Prime tyre, and Seb, obviously, had his in and it wasn't wearing down that much. So he was then coming back into the picture with his strategy. We were all trying to get temperature and at the start of the stint I had very, very low front grip and I had to manage that and move the brake balance around and things like that trying to get everything organised, and [I was] managing Nico and everyone else. But also, Seb's going ‘Hmmm, this is interesting', so I didn't want him to get the magic 21 seconds, to make sure he couldn't do the stop and get the victory - that wasn't part of the plan. I managed to sort that out and I could concentrate on Nico again and then get the car to the end. But the rain - as Fernando said coming across in the car, there were times when he was praying for rain, saying ‘good, come on, rain, rain', and then when it started he was saying, ‘no, no, I don't want it to rain'. I think it was like that for everybody, except for me, because the first guy there is always tricky. So, amazing day for the team and myself. Yeah, so I'm really, really happy to have won here again. A great memory for me. Fantastic.

Nico, so close at the end - 0.6 seconds behind Mark. You tried a number of different things and you probably hoped for the rain as well but in the end I guess it wasn't to be.
Nico Rosberg: Yeah, in general. At the beginning it was pretty straightforward. I was hoping for a good start, I had a good start, but Mark had a pretty good start too. That was it then. And then, it was just a matter of tyre management and everything and I must say I was a bit surprised by how strong we were not only in qualifying but also in the race. I think, at the end of day, for the weekend, we probably had the fastest car out there, in qualifying and the race, which is great to see, because we're just making progress all the time, so that's fantastic. Unfortunately, it didn't come together perfectly, so P2, it could have been P1 I think this weekend but there we are. No, I'm very happy with second place of course. It got a bit difficult there in the end, with the rain and the warm-up of the harder tyres but I'm very pleased.

Fernando, fifth on the grid, third at the finish, you now have sole control of the World Championship lead. Does this feel like a win to you?
Fernando Alonso: Well, our target obviously was to try to finish in front of Sebastian, in front of Lewis - they were with us in the World Championship. And if you go race by race you concentrate on different drivers. The next one will be Mark, now he's second in the championship. So, it will be interesting also this season with constant development of the car and the constant surprises we are having every race - you never know which one will be on pole or take the race win. Everything went smooth after the start, but I had a contact with Grosjean. At that point I thought maybe the car was damaged or something but the car was perfectly fine so I keep running. I felt good, I felt competitive but in Monaco it's difficult with the traffic, to manage the traffic. We overtook Hamilton at the stop, with a perfect time, a perfect pit stop again. Thanks to the team I think we are in a privileged position and well done to all of them.

Mark, back to you. The start, obviously, was decisive and as you say, you got a good one. It's not always been your strength. Tell us about today's.
MW: Yeah, it went well. The first initial getaway was very good and control after that was good, but I knew straight away it was enough to get to turn one in good shape, so that was important. The next thing was the pit stop. When Nico went two laps short - aggressive underneath me in terms of pit stop, I thought ‘I hope he can't get the tyres in'. But I was happy. Obviously I have full trust in the guys doing the strategy that he wasn't doing much more than me or in traffic or whatever. So that was the next key phase and then obviously down to the driver in terms of concentration to the maximum.

Nico, tell us about how the strategies here this afternoon, because the way this race unfolded wasn't really the way it was predicted. There were expectations of two stops. Tell us how things changed during the race.
NR: Well, it was pretty straightforward. You know, there's two way to beat Mark. One is to go really long and hope that I'm that much faster in the end, which is even more difficult. The better chance was to go short and hope that I could put in some really good lap times straight away out the pits. But with the one lap it was just difficult and that's why I couldn't go fast enough to beat him on the track.

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